


Move On

by TheLittleMuse



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lots of Angst, Post Reichenbach, introspection piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:44:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittleMuse/pseuds/TheLittleMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's a soldier. He knows how to deal with death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Move On

John can deal with death; he wouldn’t be very good at his job if he couldn’t. He’s held men and women who were closer to him than any family in his arms as they died. He’s had to make the choice between two men, brothers in arms, of who to save and who to leave. He’s had to push away the guilt about the one he abandoned.

They called Sherlock the cold one. Sherlock has never aimed a gun at another man and felt nothing when he killed them. He’s never had to shut down all feeling when dealing with a dying man on a battlefield, because if he let feelings become involved the man would die for sure.

John Watson knows how to deal with death.

He knows how to deal with the ones he might have loved, had he had the chance.

He knows loss. He knows pain. 

He’s dealt with suicide. He’s watched boys who joined the army because they had nothing else to live for rush headlong into enemy lines.

But this, this, was not the battlefield, and for a moment he looses his mind. This is Sherlock. He was supposed to be immortal. Sherlock was the crutch that put him back together, even if he never meant to. He could never understand why Sherlock would willingly destroy himself, but then, he never could really understand Sherlock’s mind. And so he is lost at sea, stretching out for a hand to pull him in.

But this is death and death is the one ever present factor in John’s life. He deals with it. Moves on. Looses one more bit of himself when he leaves 221B. John’s always moved from place to place, and he’s never had a true home to go back to. He thought he might have found it. He was wrong. Stupid, really, to get comfortable. 

He lives. Breaths. Operates as he always has.

Even the immortal must fall.

He cared too much. He always cared too much. And who was it that was forever pointing out to him that it was a disadvantage?

But then Sherlock returns, and that, John cannot forgive.

He wasn’t trusted, never trusted. Sherlock’s explanations mean nothing to him.

He’s a soldier. He could have been more help than Sherlock would ever acknowledge. But he didn’t. He didn’t see. Even one as clever as Sherlock never saw John’s worth.

In the end, he supposes, he always was just a replacement for the skull, wasn’t he?

John’s a soldier. He moves on.


End file.
